Who is on the phone?

My dear friend Angela is coming to see me this week all the way from Nashville!  I am so excited and in honor of this, I would like to share a story regarding our similar cases of mistaken phone identities. 

When we were in college, Angela used to get calls in the middle of the night of people asking for Cash, who was apparently also a person or drug dealer or both.  This happened repeatedly until one night she answered and the person on the other line said, "Yo, is this Cash?" and Angela said, no, this is not Cash.  The rest of the conversation was pretty one-sided and went something like this:

"Who is on the phone?  WHO IS ON THE PHONE? (then, to someone else) Man, I don't know who the f*ck I got on the phone."

She has a different number now, but we still laugh about that line.  Then when I moved to LA and changed to a local number, I started getting calls from someone named T-Bone's assistant.  They would always come in during business hours, and at the time I was working a normal office job and could never answer and say it was the wrong number.  But despite the fact that my voicemail stated my full name, this T-Bone person's rather dimwitted assistant always left desperate messages for whoever to call T-Bone back.  Finally one day I got a text from T-Bone himself telling me he was running late for our meeting, and I so wish I had just texted back to ask the address so I could meet this T-Bone in person.  Instead, I texted to tell him he had the wrong number.  That was the end of that.

Fast forward to last night when I was reading US Weekly (hold your judgment), specifically an article about Reese Witherspoon's wedding to CAA agent Jim Toth. (Coincidentally, the office job I was working during the era of T-Bone phone calls was at CAA.)  There I was, mindlessly glancing over details about decor, flowers, and food, when I came across this paragraph:

"Inside, producer T Bone Burnett's pals, rockabilly band the Americans, played during dinner. 'Reese and Jim . . . thanked T Bone for the band.'"

Como what?  I sat up straight.  Somehow, I knew this had to be the same guy.  How many T-Bones or T Bones could there be working in Los Angeles who have frazzled assistants that call about how their boss is late for meetings?  I always assumed T-Bone was some kind of gangsta rapper name, but maybe I wasn't that far off if T Bone apparently is this music producer legend. 

Who is on the phone, indeed.

Excerpt from "California Plush"

The only thing I miss about Los Angeles

is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and
radio blaring
bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing

--pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars

--descending through the city
fast as the law would allow

through the lights, then rising to the stack
out of the city
to the stack where lanes are stacked six deep

and you on top; the air
now clean, for a moment weightless

without memories, or
need for a past.

-Frank Bidart

Poetry meet art. Art, poetry.

My dear friend Angela is coming to visit me in a couple weeks!  I'm so excited to see her, it made me open a box of pictures that she had drawn for me one birthday.  More than a few years ago, she illustrated some of my poems as a gift, and I had them framed and hanging on my wall in my old apartment.  Since The Great Move of 2010, I haven't put them back up yet.  I was trying to figure out why and I wonder if it's because I don't want to commit that much to this new place.  I like the apartment okay, but it's just a place to live, not a home like the last one.  Possibly this is because I haven't put up any pictures.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to take photos of her artwork and post them here.  At least I'll feel at home on my blog.

This one accompanies a poem written about a trip to Venice I took with my family.  It's called "A Native's Dream":

 

This one is "Through the Keyhole," written at a particularly angsty time in college:

 

I realize it might be hard to read, which makes me thankful for my shoddy photographic skills.

And finally this one you might be familiar with already:

 

 

A Native's Dream

Rain ruined my first impression 

of Saint Mark's Square, flooded

enough to force people to balance, elevated

on wooden boards while we sought refuge

in the cathedral, guarded 

by bronze horses,

with my father, quite taken 

by the mosaic tile floors

slanting toward the altar.

"How long do you suppose," 

he asked, head bowed, 

"it took them to piece this place together?" 

I forgot to answer

in awe of those flashing cameras.

We struck out again into December

toward jade-colored waves that spilled over

concrete docks on the Grand Canal.  

Gondoliers stood in the wet drops like needles

and called to us, offering

special deals "for only today."

One young man in a black cap promised

in exchange for 80,000 lira

to wipe down the vinyl seats on his gondola himself.

My father agreed, making his familiar declaration

that this was "his city" because he came from

a full line of Venetians with trademark blue eyes, dark hair.

Our guide squinted his brown eyes and held out his hand.

We sat rocking in the boat under our huge umbrella,

the young man at the helm like a tired god

informing us that he was also a fireman.  Luca 

told my father how one could only be a gondolier

if he father was, and his father before him.  

As we passed under the Bridge of Sighs, 

the trail of my fingers swirled the canal like marble.

I'm like that guy who wrote a love letter about his typewriter except about food.

Yesterday I gave a pasta-making demonstration to some people I work for.  I was kind of nervous about it because I wanted to show them how to use their hands to mix the dough and not a food processor, which is something I've only done once but I think it tastes better.  Yeah, I probably should have practiced, but I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal.  Instead I went with talking about the process of making pasta and putting off actually making it for as long as possible.  I figured maybe they would forget why I was there?  I don't know.  Anyway, it didn't work, and while they were looking at me expectantly I took the first step and measured out the flour.  It's funny how something so simple can calm you down.  Measuring flour I know.  Cracking eggs?  Old hat.  Next came the tricky part of incorporating one into the other.  You make a "well" and sort of pinch the flour into the eggs.  As I was doing that I realized that I needed to be explaining as I went along.  One of the people got out a video camera.  My very own cooking show!

The thing about pasta as I've said before, is that it's not difficult to make really.  It just takes a lot of time and upper body strength.  Maybe I was more anxious about that last part, but as you knead the dough you think, wow I'm really earning this meal!  And the great thing about teaching is that if you show them how to do it once, you can make the students do the rest of the work. 

One of my "students" made an excellent point about the process of learning from a *cough cough* expert in a craft.  It's a shared experience doesn't happen often enough these days.  People teach themselves how to do things all the time using the internet or TV, but when another person takes the time to show you something, then you will always associate them with that process.  What a nice idea.

All in all, we came out with two great batches of fresh pasta, one of which we ate for lunch.  As the Barefoot Contessa would say,"How bad can that be?"

You Begin

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

-Margaret Atwood

Fat Tuesday

My freshman year of college we were trying to decide what to do for spring break.  My friend pointed out that it just happened to fall on the week of Mardi Gras.  We were at school in Memphis:  what if- and she was just throwing this out there- what if we drove down to New Orleans to see what it's all about?  It's about an eight hour drive.  So we did it, the two of us and another friend.

To this day I have no idea how we got a room at the last minute in the center of town.  We could walk to Bourbon Street and see all the festivities.  This was pre-Katrina.  There were random parades happening all the time.  It's all kind of a blur to me, not because I was wasted the whole time but because there was so much going on.  I wish I could go back now and do it over because for some reason we were eating at places like the Hard Rock Cafe and not really taking advantage of the culture down there.  Everywhere there was music.  The whole city was one big party.

There was this one store we went into that had a song playing that I loved immediately.  It was what could only be described as zydecajun music.  This was around the time of the dawn of Napster.  As soon as we got back to school, I tried to find this song and download it.  Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found.  It has haunted me for years, and sometimes I wonder if the internet had been too young or if I just didn't have enough information to find it.  Guess the only thing to do is to take another trip to New Orleans and retrace my steps, hoping that that same store is there, still playing that same old CD.

Slim Greer in Hell 

by Sterling A. Brown

I
 
Slim Greer went to heaven;
St. Peter said, "Slim,
You been a right good boy."
An' he winked at him.

"You been travelin' rascal
In yo'day.
You kin roam once mo';
Den you come to stay.

"Put dese wings on yo' shoulders,
An' save yo' feet."
Slim grin, and he speak up,
"Thankye, Pete."

Den Peter say, "Go
To Hell an' see,
All dat is doing, and
Report to me.

"Be sure to remember
How everything go."
Slim say, "I be seein' yuh
On de late watch, bo."

Slim got to cavortin'
Swell as you choose,
Like Lindy in de Spirit
Of St. Louis Blues.

He flew an' he flew,
Till at last he hit
A hangar wid de sign readin'
DIS IS IT.

Den he parked his wings,
An' strolled aroun',
Gittin' used to his feet
On de solid ground.

II

Big bloodhound came aroarin'
Like Niagry Falls,
Sicked on by white devils
In overhalls.

Now Slim warn't scared
Cross my heart, it's a fac',
An de dog went on a bayin'
Some po' devil's track.

Den Slim saw a mansion
An' walked right in;
De Devil looked up
Wid a sickly grin.

"Suttingly didn't look
Fo' you, Mr. Greer,
How it happens you comes
To visit here?"

Slim say---"Oh, jes' thought
I'd drop by a spell."
"Feel at home, seh, an' here's
De keys to hell."

Den he took Slim around
An' showed him people
Rasin' hell as high as
De first Church Steeple.

Lots of folks fightin'
At de roulette wheel,
Like old Rampart Street,
Or leastwise Beale.

Showed him bawdy houses
An' cabarets,
Slim thought of New Orleans
An' Memphis days.

Each devil was busy
Wid a devlish broad,
An' Slim cried, "Lawdy,
Lawd, Lawd, Lawd."

Took him in a room
Where Slim see
De preacher wid a brownskin
On each knee.

Showed him giant stills,
Going everywhere,
Wid a passel of devils
Stretched dead drunk there.

Den he took him to de furnace
Dat some devils was firing,
Hot as Hell, an' Slim start
A mean presspirin'.

White devils with pitchforks
Threw black devils on,
Slim thought he'd better
Be gittin' along.

An' he says---"Dis makes
Me think of home---
Vicksburg, Little Rock, Jackson,
Waco and Rome."

Den de devil gave Slim
De big Ha-Ha;
An' turned into a cracker,
Wid a sheriff's star.

Slim ran fo' his wings,
Lit out from de groun'
Hauled it back to St. Peter,
Safety boun'.

III

St. Peter said, "Well,
You got back quick.
How's de devil? An' what's
His latest trick?"

An' Slim Say, "Peter,
I really cain't tell,
The place was Dixie
That I took for hell."

Then Peter say, "you must
Be crazy, I vow,
Where'n hell dja think Hell was,
Anyhow?

"Git on back to de yearth,
Cause I got de fear,
You'se a leetle too dumb,
Fo' to stay up here. . ."

In the category of Seussical impressions regarding grammatics . . .

this email from September 2005 wins first prize.  I was once again doing a random search through my inbox archives (shut up, it's my thing) and was delighted to see how the following poem evolved. 

It came at a time when I had just started working for a publisher in Washington, DC.  As an editorial assistant, I was tasked with bathing copy in red ink before it went to press.  The rest of the time I spent emailing with my dear friend Angela in Chicago.  We were both feeling like lone reeds ("standing tall, waving boldly, in the corrupt sands of commerce") and so would cheer each other up with silly back-and-forths about nothing.

This was the observation she made to me that day:

"I think all those years of not capitalizing things is trying to make up for lost time. I keep inadvertently capitalizing random words in the middle of sentences. I feel German or something..."

To which I replied:

"I'm so proud of your turning of the proverbial capitalization new leaf.  Wow, if any of my old professors would have read that last sentence, I shudder to think of the amount of red ink that would have been spilled in the writing of 'awkward phrasing'."

 

That last bit put me in Dr. Seuss mode, which then resulted in the following limerick I sent back to her:

 

Upon penning the most jumbled of phrases,

I awoke from the most dazed of hazes.

I shuddered to think of the amount of red ink

to be lost in my grammatical mazes.

 

Coincidentally, this poem also wins first prize in the category of Nerdiest Limerick Ever.

Dead presidents, frozen cavemen, and frozen coke

I'm excited about this weekend because a friend of mine that I've known since 8th grade (!) is coming to see me.  I don't think I've seen her in about eight or nine years, but I have no doubt we'll pick up right where we left off.  To quote what she wrote about her upcoming visit on her blog,

"we're planning to re-visit 8th grade, which means lots of frozen coke, popcorn, face cream, nail polish, and of course watching our favorite movie from that time, Encino Man. We'll probably use phrases you won't remember like "Owwwww Buddddy" and "Weeze the Jui-uice."

Well said, April!  And then she posted an 8th grade picture.  I won't do that.  I'll just post this senior year pic instead:

In other news, my dad complained that I was including too much "contemporary poetry crap" on here, so here's an oldie but a goodie (just like you, Dad).

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run--
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

The human condition

I have to dedicate a post to my roommate, who, upon hearing I was feeling under the weather, took it upon herself to learn how to make fresh ginger tea.  It is seriously the best thing in the world.  It tastes a little like ginger ale but with more bite.  Plus it's hot.  And there's lemon in it.  So, thanks, Omaira Galarza.  Now I'm not so scared to go see The Roommate with you.

I asked Omi what kind of poem she would like dedicated to her today.  She said something about the beach.  Then I found this poem and we both had a good chuckle over it:

The Beach in August

The day the fat woman

In the bright blue bathing suit

Walked into the water and died,

I thought about the human

Condition. Pieces of old fruit

Came in and were left by the tide.

What I thought about the human

Condition was this: old fruit

Comes in and is left, and dries

In the sun. Another fat woman

In a dull green bathing suit

Dives into the water and dies.

The pulmotors glisten. It is noon.

We dry and die in the sun

While the seascape arranges old fruit,

Coming in and the tide, glistening

At noon. A woman, moderately stout,

In a nondescript bathing suit,

Swims to a pier. A tall woman

Steps toward the sea. One thinks about the human

Condition. The tide goes in and goes out.

-Weldon Kees*

*Note the last line in his bio: " It is not known whether he killed himself or went to Mexico."  Omi thinks he went to Mexico to lay out on the beach.

Rich man's problem

Somehow I have amassed a collection of aprons.  I say "somehow" because it is not something I ever thought of doing.  It just happened.  A couple of years ago my roommates and some friends of ours decided to do our very own version of Top Chef, except it was more like Iron Chef and The Next Food Network Star all rolled into one.  We called it Next Top Iron Chef.  There were two teams of two and I was the sous chef on my team.  My chef friend and I took it very seriously.  The secret ingredient was egg, and my team won.  During the competition my chef friend had let me borrow one of her aprons so we could look all business.  When it was over she let me keep it.  This is what it looks like:

Simple, straight-forward, practical.  I used this apron consistently when I made dinner, especially after coming home from work so I wouldn't mess up my clothes.  Over the course of the next year, my friend who had given me that apron moved to New York.  I was sad to see her go because she is awesome and I missed her.  On my birthday, she surprised me by sending me a new apron.  What?! I was so excited to have such a wealth of aprons.  This one had a little more pizzazz:

I tended to gravitate more to it for cooking and the other for baking.  I didn't want to get flour all over my new apron.  Then on my birthday this year, a different friend gave me a brand new home-sewn apron that was a little more girly and frilly than the others.  It's so pretty!  I couldn't believe my good luck.  I wear it when cooking for guests:

But now, my dear friend Angela has upped the ante.  She embroidered me an apron that is so darling that frankly I don't know what to do with it.  I'm actually afraid to use it.  It's dainty and reminds me of those old-fashioned pinafores that women used to wear.  I hate the thought of getting grease or chocolate all over it (don't you want to know what I'm cooking).  I even had trouble figuring out the best way to photograph it in order to do it justice.  I'm still not sure I did:

My apartment is from the 1920s, so there's an old ironing board built into the wall in the kitchen.  I thought it would be a nice match for the apron.  Now I just need to figure out the perfect occasion to wear it (the apron, not the ironing board).

Why I Am Not a Painter

-Frank O'Hara

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

To my friends, thank you. I'm going to bed.

There's a line from the animated movie Charlotte's Web that always comes to mind when I'm lying awake in the wee hours of the night: "When your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's hard to fall asleep."  This is a true statement.  I haven't been sleeping well.  Last night I forgot to eat dinner because I ate popcorn while watching scary old movies instead, so by 1:00 am my stomach was indeed empty.  And my mind was full because, compounded with the page-turner I'd been reading before I turned off the light, I was trying to plot the perfect murder for a script I'm working on.  Reading before bed usually relaxes me, but this book is having the opposite effect.  It wakes my brain up. 

Once I did fall asleep, I had some weird dream about living in a haunted house, but I chalk that up more to the creepy 1950s movie I saw earlier.  All this to say that I was worried about having the same problem tonight-- the falling asleep, not the weird dream.  Luckily, I have just discovered the cure for such a problem.  Have a bunch of good friends over, drink a few cups of hot mulled wine, watch a hilariously bad movie and laugh until your abs are sore.  You will be sleepy and happy by the time they leave.  Right now I can barely see through my bleary eyes.  Could be the mulled wine, but I thank my friends.

Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

-Richard Brautigan